


Strange New Doctor

by regenderate



Series: Nothing in This World but You For Me [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-09-23 07:46:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17076242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/regenderate/pseuds/regenderate
Summary: “Oh, brilliant!” the Doctor exclaimed. “Always wanted to try being a woman. I just have one more question.” And here she leaned even closer to Rose, looking into Rose’s eyes with an intensity Rose had only seen in the direst of situations before. “Am I ginger?”“What? No,” Rose said. “You’re sort of… yellow.”“Oh, yellow! Like you!” the Doctor exclaimed. “Brilliant."--Instead of regenerating into ten, nine regenerates into thirteen. It doesn't make numerical sense, but please, suspend your disbelief.





	1. The Christmas Invasion

**Author's Note:**

> So I... hate fics that use the same dialogue from the episodes for the whole thing. That being said, when writing this fic, I realized that some of what I wanted was just season two where everything is exactly the same but thirteen is the Doctor. The good news is that thirteen is definitely different from ten, and Rose's reaction to her is definitely different, etc. etc. etc., so I was able to minimize dialogue lifted right from the episode, and I think it'll only get better in that respect as I write more chapters (I'm *really* looking forward to writing New Earth). So I'm leaving this disclaimer, but don't let it stop you from giving the fic a chance!
> 
> This fits in to an AU that I've already established in other fics-- it's actually really the first in the series, so you don't have to worry about catching up or anything.
> 
> (I edited the summary because I wrote it at like 1 AM and it didn't make sense. It's still not a super effective summary, but... whatever.)

“You were fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. And you know what?” The Doctor’s maniacal grin worried Rose even more than the golden light threatening to break free from him. “So was I!”

The golden light grew so bright, so intense, that Rose had to look away, her eyes screwed shut. When the light stopped pressing against her eyelids, she looked back, expecting to see-- well, she didn’t know what she expected to see. But she definitely  _ hadn’t  _ expected to see a woman, at least six inches shorter and entirely blonde, standing exactly where the Doctor had just been and wearing the Doctor’s  _ way _ -too-big clothes.

“Hello, Rose,” the woman said, grinning. She stopped, her mouth twitching. “Ooh, new teeth. Don’t like them.” She grinned again. “Anyway. Barcelona, right?”

Rose just stared.

“Maybe not, then,” the woman said. “Might as well get you home. Home for Christmas?” Her face twisted itself in pain. “Oh, ah, there goes the skin on my elbow. Always a little late.”

“Who are you?” Rose asked. “Where’s-- where’s the Doctor?”

“Oh, that’s me,” the woman said. “I’m the Doctor. I told you. We’ve got this thing to stop us from dying.” She doubled over, pressing a hand to her abdomen and crying in pain. “Oh-- except-- I think it’s going rather badly wrong.” She straightened very suddenly, running to the TARDIS console, holding on for dear life. “Come on, come on… got to get you back before I can’t-- ah!” She twisted to the side. “Other elbow! Come on!” She flipped a lever, pressed a button, managed to lunge two feet to the side to read a display, lurched to the other side to twist a knob, and the TARDIS engines creaked and shuddered as the woman gritted her teeth, Rose still standing exactly where she had been.

The engines became quiet, and the woman stumbled to the doors, saying, “Merry Christmas, Rose.” 

She left the TARDIS, and Rose ran out after her to find the woman passed out on the concrete of the Powell Estate, Mickey and her mum standing over her.

“What happened?” Rose asked. “Did you see? Is she all right?”

“She just sort of keeled over,” Rose’s mum said. “Is she another alien?”

“Where’s the Doctor?” Mickey asked.

Rose looked at her mum, then at Mickey, and then she said, “That’s the Doctor. Right in front of you.” Her voice was quiet. “He was dying, and then he just-- he just changed. You’re sure she just fell?”

“Wished us a merry Christmas first,” Mickey said. 

“We’ve got to get her to a hospital,” Rose’s mum said.

“We can’t,” Rose said. “They can’t help her.” She looked around. They could go back into the TARDIS and wander the corridors on the off chance they found a room with a bed, or they could go up to the flat, where Rose knew how to find the beds. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s get her upstairs.”

Rose crouched by the woman’s head and hooked her arms under the woman’s. Her mum got the legs, while Mickey positioned himself awkwardly around the torso. Mikey counted to three, and together they lifted this strange new Doctor, whose arms and head were flopping all over the place. Somehow, they managed to maneuver her up the stairs, her hair falling all over her face, and into the flat, and then into Rose’s bed.  

Rose, her mum, and Mickey stepped back, looking at the woman in front of them. Rose stepped forward and pushed some of the brand new blonde hair out of her face, revealing bold, arched eyebrows and a soft expression as she slept.

“We should take that jacket off her,” Rose said. “Can’t be comfortable to sleep in.”

“Could get her in some of your pajamas,” her mum replied. “I still think we should have gone to the hospital.”

“I’ve told you,” Rose said, still at the woman’s head, looking down at her brand new face. The Doctor’s brand new face?  “We can’t.”

Her mum was already moving towards her dresser, pulling out Rose’s favorite flannel pajamas. 

“Well, at least help me get these on her,” she said.

“Yeah, I’m out,” Mickey said. “Tell me when you’re done with all this.” He backed out of the room, and Rose sighed.

“We don’t need to give her pajamas,” she said. 

“Oh, come on,” her mum said. “You want to leave her there in pants three inches too long?”

Rose sighed. “Can’t she change herself when she wakes up?”

“Or she could wake up nice and comfortable,” her mum said. “I’m getting these pajamas onto her. You can help if you want.”

“Nope,” Rose said. “This one’s on you.” She looked down at the Doctor’s new face one more time. “Have you got a stethoscope?”

“Why would I have a stethoscope?” her mum asked, busy taking the Doctor’s jacket off of the woman. 

“I don’t know,” Rose said. “Just thought I’d ask, is all.”

“You’re the one traveling with a doctor,” her mum muttered. 

Rose’s mum had gotten the flannel shirt on over the Doctor’s old shirt, and now she was easing the Doctor’s pants off, a task made all the easier by the fact that the Doctor’s pants were much bigger than they needed to be. Rose looked away and busied herself with searching through the Doctor’s jacket for his screwdriver, feeling like she was intruding on the Doctor’s privacy. Of course, her mum had no such qualms.

It didn’t take long for Rose’s mum to finish dressing the woman in Rose’s pajamas, which were almost exactly the right size. Seeing the worried look on Rose’s face, she said that she had just remembered that her friend’s lodger was maybe a doctor, and maybe she could track down a stethoscope. Rose had long since learned not to question her mum’s strange connections, so she agreed, and her mum left.

And now Rose was alone with the sleeping stranger who had been the Doctor. 

She set the sonic screwdriver on the nightstand and sat on the edge of the bed, looking down at this new face. When this new Doctor had first materialized, Rose had been able to see a hint of the old in her eyes, in the energy with which she had immediately begun piloting the TARDIS. But now-- her eyes were closed. She was wearing Rose’s pajamas. She just looked like a stranger. A stranger asleep in Rose’s bed.

As Rose watched, the woman’s mouth opened in an exhale, and a wisp of golden light floated out. It rose up and dispersed as it reached the ceiling. Rose looked back at the woman. She was still sleeping, her mouth closed now, like nothing had happened.

She really was an alien.

This really was the Doctor.

Rose took the Doctor’s hand in both of hers. It was warm against Rose’s skin, and very real. Very tangible. Rose wondered whether it was made of the same cells as the old Doctor’s hand had been. It felt different. Softer. Smaller. There was no evidence of it being the same hand, and yet-- it must have been.

Rose didn’t know how long she sat there, looking at the Doctor, holding her warm hand. She just knew that, after a while, her mum came in, halfway through explaining the origins of the stethoscope in her hand.

“So I just took it,” she finished, standing at Rose’s shoulder. “Though I still say we should take her to the hospital.”

“I told you,” Rose said turning her head to look up at her mum. “We can’t.” She took the stethoscope from her mum and pushed her hair back and over one shoulder, fitting the stethoscope into her ears. She leaned over the Doctor and placed the stethoscope’s end on the left side of her chest, listening.

The heartbeat echoed in her ears.  _ Thump thump. Thump thump.  _ And a fainter heartbeat, too-- 

Rose switched to the right side of the Doctor’s chest. The second heartbeat was just as clear as the first, and Rose almost cried with relief.

“Both working,” she said.

“What do you mean, both?” her mum asked.

Rose took the stethoscope out of her ears and set it on the nightstand.

“He-- she’s got two hearts.”

“What do you mean, two hearts?” her mum asked.

“Two hearts,” Rose repeated. 

Her mum looked at the Doctor, eyebrows raised, appraising every inch of the new body.

“Oh, leave her alone,” Rose said, standing up and pushing her mum out of the room.

She spent the rest of the day helping her mum and Mickey get ready for Christmas, trying not to think about the Doctor, asleep and alone. She even went shopping with Mickey, holding his hand and everything as they looked in at the shops and she tried not to talk his ear off about the Doctor and the TARDIS.

Of course, it was hard not to talk his ear off about the Doctor when he-- she? --was all Rose could think about, and then it was even harder when they were attacked by the brass band outside one of the shops, and Rose was  _ sure _ it was because they were affiliated with the Doctor, because why else would weird plastic Santas care about her and her Earth boyfriend? 

She and Mickey dashed home, trying to get ahold of her mum, but of course when they got there her mum was on the phone with one of her friends, and Rose took the phone and hung it up, and then, in the brief moment of confused silence that followed, she noticed a Christmas tree in the corner of the room.

“Mum,” she said, staring at the brand new addition to the decoration, “where’d you get that tree?”

Halfway through her mum’s defense, the tree’s ornaments began to float, and Rose knew they were in for trouble.

She was right.

The tree began to levitate, and instead of running out the door like a sensible person, Rose’s first instinct was to rush down the hall, back to the Doctor. The tree followed, and so did Rose’s mum and Mickey, even as they shrieked at Rose to run for the door. They all wound up in Rose’s bedroom, cowering around the Doctor, and Rose was completely out of ideas. It wasn’t like she was the idea person. That was all the Doctor, and the Doctor was asleep, and maybe close to dead. 

And then Rose  _ had _ an idea. Not a fully-formed one, and certainly not a long-term plan, but she knew that the old Doctor had cared about her, and she knew that the old Doctor could fix any number of mechanical situations with his ( _ her _ ) sonic screwdriver. So she grabbed the screwdriver off the nightstand and pressed into the Doctor’s hand, and then, hoping against hope, she leaned down, pushed the Doctor’s new long hair away from her ear, and whispered, “ _ Help me. _ ”

To her surprise, it worked. The Doctor shot up to a sitting position and raised the sonic, and a moment later, the tree burst into a shower of sparks. 

“Right, then,” the Doctor said. “What’s controlling it?”

And for a moment, Rose thought she saw a familiar spark in this strange woman’s eyes.

“Do you have a dressing gown?” the Doctor asked. “I’m not sure I can go out like this.”

“I’ll get one of mine,” Rose’s mum said.

“No need,” Rose said. “Mine’s hanging on the door.”

“Brilliant,” the Doctor said, standing up. She wobbled a little, and Rose instinctively held out an arm to steady her. “Thanks, Rose.” 

Rose’s mum grabbed Rose’s dressing gown off the door and handed it to Rose, who helped the Doctor put it on.

“Brilliant,” the Doctor said again. She did a scan with her sonic (“I’ve got to trace the waves,” she explained) and started walking, with only a little bit of a wobble in her step. Rose and the others followed, ready to catch her if she fell.

They emerged onto the walkway outside the Tyler flat to look down on the parking lot, where three of the plastic Santas were waiting for them. As they looked down, the Santas looked up, and the Doctor gasped, almost excited. She raised her screwdriver.

“What are they?” Rose asked.

The screwdriver buzzed, and the Santas disappeared. 

“What’s up with that?” Mickey asked. “Can’t be that much of a threat, if a screwdriver can scare them off.”

“Oi, this screwdriver’s got more power than your little finger,” the Doctor said. “And anyway, those are just pilot fish.”

“What?” Rose asked.

The Doctor looked ready to answer, but then she doubled over with a grunt, and Rose rushed to support her.

“What is it?” her mum asked. “What’s wrong?”

“Woke me up too soon,” the Doctor said, breathing hard. “I’m not done yet. Still-- still cooking. All this-- this energy inside of me--” and then a golden cloud emerged from her mouth and floated away. “See? The pilot fish can smell it. They’re here to carry me off. Only they thought they had to get rid of you lot to do it. But--  _ ow! _ ” She put her hand to her head.

“Are you all right?” Rose asked. 

“I’m having a neuron implosion,” the Doctor said. “It’s-- it’s complicated-- I just need--”

Rose’s mum pushed past Rose to stand in front of the Doctor, and then suddenly she was listing off over-the-counter remedies for all sorts of problems while the Doctor struggled to get a word in edgewise. Finally, the Doctor cried, “I need you to shut up!” and Jackie backed off.

“Suppose she hasn’t changed, then,” she said, as the Doctor swayed dangerously.

“Sorry!” the Doctor said. “Brain’s all collapsing. But-- the pilot fish-- they mean that something’s-- something’s coming.”

And with that, she keeled over completely, crumpling to the ground.

“Why’d you have to go and talk over her?” Rose asked, trying to maneuver the Doctor into a position where Rose could carry her. “What she was telling us was important!”

“I didn’t know she was going to go and faint!” 

Mickey got on the Doctor’s other side, and together, they managed to move her back into Rose’s room. They laid her down, and Rose pushed her messy blonde hair out of her face, her hand lingering on the curve of the Doctor’s brand new ear. She picked the stethoscope up off the nightstand and put it back in her ears.

She pressed the end to the left side of the Doctor’s chest. Mickey was saying something to her mum, and the TV was on in the background, but at this moment, only one thing mattered to Rose.

There was no heartbeat.

Frantic, she checked the right side. That heart was beating loud and clear, but-- for how long?

“Only one heart working,” she said to her mum. 

“Rose, I found something,” Mickey said from the other side of the room. Rose rushed to his side. “Pilot fish, see? They swim alongside a bigger fish and feed on its leftovers.”

“So something bigger is coming,” Rose said, her voice soft. 

It was going to be a long night.

Mickey showed Rose and her mum video from the military, showing some strange alien-- Rose hadn’t seen it before, but the most disturbing part was that she couldn’t understand a word it was saying.

“Must be the TARDIS,” she said. “It usually translates inside my head, but… it must be because of the Doctor.”

The military stream said they had about five hours before the aliens got to Earth. So began a terrible vigil-- Rose’s mum fell asleep almost immediately at the Doctor’s bedside, practically in the middle of fussing over her, which left Rose and Mickey, standing over this strange new woman.

“You love her, don’t you?” Mickey asked, but it wasn’t really a question. 

Rose didn’t have an answer to that. She was already at the end of her emotional rope, and she knew she needed to have a conversation with Mickey that she just couldn’t have right now. She just turned and hugged him, and he hugged her back. 

“At least now she’s a woman I don’t have to be worried about us anymore.”

Or maybe they were going to have this conversation. Or, a version of the conversation Rose had been dreading.

“Maybe,” she said, stepping back and turning to look at the Doctor again.

“What do you mean?” Mickey asked. 

“He kissed me,” Rose said. “Just before he changed. To-- to take the TARDIS energy away from me. It would have killed me.”

“But that’s not real, is it?” Mickey asked. “Not if it was just to take away that energy.”

“I don’t know,” Rose said. “It sort of-- it sort of felt real.”

“Is that it?” Mickey asked. “You going to leave me to go off in space?”

“You could always come with us,” Rose said.

“That’s not what I asked,” Mickey said. 

“I don’t know,” Rose repeated. “I-- I thought I knew who he was, but now-- I don’t know if she’s even going to want me around anymore.”

“But you love her,” Mickey said.

“Yeah,” Rose admitted. “Even when I don’t know who she is.”

“That’s okay,” Mickey said. “I just have to know, all right? None of this leaving me hanging anymore.”

“Don’t tell my mum,” Rose said. 

“I think she already knows,” Mickey said. 

“So is that it?” Rose asked, looking back up at Mickey. “For us?”

“Yeah,” Mickey said. “I’m still here for you though.”

Rose turned and hugged him again. He hugged her back, and it felt like an ending.

“I’m going to go crash on the couch,” Mickey said. “We’ve still got, what, four hours until the spaceship lands?”

And then it was just Rose and the Doctor, alone in Rose’s bedroom. 

Rose didn’t want to sleep. What if she woke up and the Doctor was dead? She realized that no one had questioned where she would sleep, if it came to that-- it was a foregone conclusion that she would stay with the Doctor.

She herself hadn’t once considered leaving the Doctor’s side, so maybe there was some merit in that.

She slipped into bed next to the Doctor. The Doctor didn’t move. Rose resisted the temptation to rest her head on the Doctor’s chest to hear her heartbeat-- that wasn’t really a boundary she had ever crossed with the Doctor, and things were different, anyway, now that the Doctor was a stranger. And a woman, no less. 

So Rose just took the Doctor’s hand in one of her own, needing the warmth as a reminder that the Doctor was still alive. She curled up, facing the Doctor but not touching, and laid awake, staring at the silhouette of the Doctor’s chest rising and falling.

She woke up a few hours later with the Doctor’s hand still warm in hers and her mum standing over her bed.

“Is she all right?” her mum asked.

“I don’t know, Mum,” Rose said, shaking her hair out of her face and sitting up. She let go of the Doctor’s hand. “Hand me the stethoscope?”

Her mum picked the stethoscope off the nightstand and handed it to Rose. She checked the heartbeats again.

“Still just the one,” she murmured. “I don’t know what to do. Doctor, what am I supposed to do?”

The Doctor slept on.

Mickey came in then.

“Come outside with me,” he said. “Something’s happening.”

Rose’s mum left with him, and Rose followed a few steps behind. They got to the door just in time to see their neighbor Sandra walk past with her son Jason. Jason was walking zombie-like past, a strange blue aura around his head, but Sandra was trying to talk to him, asking what he was doing and begging him to stop.

“Well, what are we supposed to do?” Rose’s mum asked once Sandra had disappeared up the stairs, pleading with her son all the way.

“Nothing,” Rose said. “There’s no one to save us anymore.” She stepped out of the doorway, back into the flat. “I’m going to go back to the Doctor.”

She walked back through the hall to her bedroom. Her mum and Mickey followed, chattering about whatever was happening to Sandra’s son. Rose couldn’t bring herself to care.

Even though she had only been gone a moment, she felt relief at seeing the Doctor again, her chest still rising and falling with breath. She picked up the stethoscope again, but just then, her mum turned on the television, and Rose was distracted by what Harriet Jones, Prime Minister, was saying.

“Doctor,” she was saying, “if you’re out there, we need you.”

Rose looked from this last-ditch plea for help to the Doctor lying in her bed, in her  _ pajamas _ , looking just as fragile as any human, and suddenly she couldn’t take it anymore. She burst into tears. 

“But he’s gone,” she murmured. “He’s left me.”

Her mum pulled her into a hug, and Rose sobbed into her chest.

“I’m so sorry, love,” her mum said. “So sorry.”

Rose might have kept that up for quite a while if, at that moment, there hadn’t been a terrible shattering noise. She looked up to see her bedroom window shattered on the floor and a great hulking mass of rough brown rock hanging in the sky. 

“What do we do?” her mum asked, but her voice sounded like it was coming from far away.

“We hide,” Rose said. Her voice was empty. She  _ felt _ empty. There was an alien invasion, and for the first time, she could do nothing about it. 

“Where are we supposed to do that?” Mickey asked.

“The TARDIS,” Rose said. “It’s still safer than anyplace on Earth, even if he’s not in it.”

“That’s it?” her mum asked.

“Yes,” Rose said. “That’s it. I’m sorry. I’ve been all over the place, and I’ve seen all sorts of things, but when you put me back here, I’m useless.”

“Well, I’m at least going to pack some food,” her mum said, and she left the room.

“Help me move her?” Rose asked Mickey, gesturing at the Doctor.

Together, the two of them managed to get the Doctor into the TARDIS, Rose’s mum hot on their heels. Rose stared blankly at the console and gave defeated and passive answers while Mickey and her mum tried to talk to her about what to do next, and then her mum pressed a mug of tea into her hands, like that was going to help anything, and ran off to get the rest of the food.

“So, you can’t fly this at all?” Mickey asked.

“Nope,” Rose said. 

“Well, maybe we can at least get a satellite feed,” he said, fiddling with one of the monitors. Rose didn’t have the energy to stop him.

The monitor beeped, and Rose gave it a passing glance. She didn’t know how to interpret the lines making their way across the screen, but then again, she didn’t expect to. Mickey was still trying to figure it out, though.

“Maybe it’s a distress signal,” he said. 

“Fat lot of good that’ll do,” Rose said.

“Are you going to be a misery this whole time?”

Rose rolled her eyes.

“Yes,” she said. Glancing down at the Doctor, lying limp on the floor, she felt justified in it.

“Think about it from my perspective,” Mickey said. “Stuck in here with your mum’s cooking.”

Rose surprised herself by almost laughing at that one.

“Where is she, anyway?” she asked. “Should be in here by now. I’m going to go give her a hand.”

“Tell her anything from a tin, that’s fine,” Mickey said.

“Tell her yourself,” Rose retorted.

“I’m not that brave,” Mickey replied. 

Rose gave him a grin as she stepped out of the TARDIS.

She did not step out into the concrete of the parking lot.

She only had a split second to process where she was-- dark, rocky, surrounded by aliens-- before one of the aliens grabbed her, and she screamed.

And then everything started happening all at once. Mickey raced out of the TARDIS, and Rose yelled at him to close the door, and the alien claws were really digging into her skin, and then she saw Harriet Jones with two other government-type people, and an audience of skeletal creatures arranged like a Roman-style Senate. Rose looked at Harriet, and then at Mickey, and she realized that, even with them here, she was alone, separated from them by these aliens, standing on her own.

She missed the Doctor. He would have been standing beside her now, or running around trying to save the world, or something. 

The aliens were speaking now, in strange tones that she couldn’t understand. It only added to her loneliness. She could usually feel the TARDIS humming in her head, but now there was silence. A presence removed. 

One of Harriet’s people was reading off a tablet of some sort. It took Rose a moment to realize he was translating, and by then she had only caught the second part of what he was saying.

“She has the blue box,” he read. “She speaks for your planet.”

“She can’t do that!” Harriet said.

And then Rose realized: in this space, she was the human who knew the most about how to handle this situation. It wasn’t saying much, but she  _ was  _ the most qualified to handle this. 

Feeling a sliver of white-hot confidence rise up in her chest, she stepped forward.

“Yes, I can,” she said. 

And then came the fear.

She bungled her way through a stammered speech that sounded sort of like something the Doctor might say. The aliens laughed, which she supposed she deserved, and then Harriet’s aide read off a translation of their withering response. 

And then, halfway through the withering response, Rose started to understand what the aliens were saying. She gasped and looked at the TARDIS. The letters across the top were glowing white. A hum started up in her head. 

“It’s the TARDIS,” she said to the others, who all seemed completely baffled. “It’s translating. Which means…”

Just as she trailed off, the TARDIS doors fell open, and there was the brand new Doctor, looking just a little silly in Rose’s pajamas, her hair tucked behind one ear. She looked at Rose with an almost mischievous grin and asked, “Did you miss me?”

Rose wanted to cry out, _ Yes! _ but she didn’t. She just grinned back, relief breaking in her heart, and watched as the alien cracked a whip and the Doctor strode over to it, looking up at it with her head tilted to the side. 

She grabbed the whip.

“You could take an eye out with that,” she said, still with a bit of a smile. “Wouldn’t recommend it.” She looked around, and then turned back to the aliens. “Now, I’ll be right with you. Got some things to do first.” She turned to Mickey. “Hello, Mickey! Nice seeing you here. Oh, and Harriet Jones, MP Flydale North! Lovely to see you again, really. Wish it were under better circumstances, but really, what can you do?” And now she turned to Rose. “Just needed a good cup of tea, it turns out. Love tea. Superheated infusion of free radicals and tannins. Healed my synapses right up. So first things first.” She put her hands on Rose’s shoulders, and Rose tried not to shiver. “How do I look?”

Rose looked into this new Doctor’s face. Her eyes were strikingly wide: they were hazel, Rose decided. Her blonde hair curved around her face in quite a pleasing way. Something about her looked a little out of place in Rose’s soft pink dressing gown; she was still hard in all the ways the Doctor had been hard, Rose realized. 

“Er, different,” Rose finally said.

“How different? Good different, or bad different?”

“Well, you’re a woman,” Rose said. “I don’t know if that’s good or bad.”

“Oh, brilliant!” the Doctor exclaimed. “Always wanted to try being a woman. I just have one more question.” And here she leaned even closer to Rose, looking into Rose’s eyes with an intensity Rose had only seen in the direst of situations before. “Am I ginger?”

“What? No,” Rose said. “You’re sort of… yellow.”

“Oh, yellow! Like you!” the Doctor exclaimed. “Brilliant. Granted, I wanted to be ginger, always wanted to be ginger, but yellow’ll do fine.”

Rose grinned. “It’s not bad,” she said. 

Harriet Jones’s voice came from behind the Doctor, startling both her and Rose back into the situation at hand.

“Excuse me,” Harriet asked, “but who are you?”

“Oh, I’m the Doctor!” the Doctor exclaimed.

“It’s true,” Rose said. 

“What do you mean?” Harriet asked. “Where’s my Doctor? Is it a title that’s passed down?”

“Nope,” the Doctor said. “I’m him. He’s me. Literally. It’s just a new face. Like a really intense makeover.”

“That’s impossible,” Harriet said. 

“Harriet Jones,” the Doctor said. “We were in Downing Street together. Aliens all over. And your biggest fear was that your mother was going to be alone. How is she, by the way?”

“My God,” Harriet said. “It’s you. And she’s fine, thanks.”

“Did you win the election?” the Doctor asked.

“Landslide majority,” Harriet said, with a bit of a blush.

Of course, the aliens couldn’t let the small talk go on for that long. The big one in charge interrupted at that point, and the Doctor turned back to them, as glib as ever. 

“Right, yes, sorry,” she said. “I’ve been ignoring you for far too long.”

“Who exactly  _ are _ you?” the alien asked. 

“Isn’t that a good question!” the Doctor exclaimed.

“I demand to know who you are!”

“I’ve absolutely  _ no _ idea,” the Doctor said, cheerful as ever, as she started walking around the space. “Here’s the thing. I don’t know who I am. I could be anybody. I mean, I’m the Doctor, but beyond that? Who knows? I haven’t tried anything yet. I might be funny. Flirty. Happy, sad, nervous. Could be a coward, although I really hope not. Or a traitor, or a liar. Any sort of thing. It’s all out there. I mean, it seems like I’m  _ definitely  _ a bit of a talker. Bit glib, maybe.” By now, she had gotten up into the ranks of the Sycorax, and she was crouched down, looking at something that Rose couldn’t quite see. “And how am I supposed to react when I see this? Big red button! I love a big red button.  _ And _ I’d be willing to bet it’s not meant to be pressed, yeah?”

She crouched lower, her hair falling into her eyes. Rose pretended she didn’t think it was a little cute. 

“Oh, and what’s this?” She popped right back up, licking her finger. “Blood? Blood! Human blood. A positive, bit of iron… oh! Blood control!” She seemed absolutely ecstatic about this. Whatever it was. “I haven’t seen blood control in years. So. You’re controlling all the A positives. That’s going to be a problem.” She shrugged. “Sorry. Can’t help it. I really, really  _ don’t  _ know who I am. I don’t know when to stop. So, when I see this big red button that must never be pressed…” Her grin lit up the whole room. “I just want to do this.” 

And she slammed her hand down on the button. 

Everyone gasped. Rose felt herself yelling out. 

There was a stillness. A moment of complete horror.

Harriet’s translator cried, “You’ve killed them!”

“Oh, yeah?” the Doctor asked, still completely glib, like absolutely nothing had changed. She looked up at the alien. “You think they’re dead?”

“We have allowed them to live.”

“Allowed, sure,” the Doctor said. “You’ve allowed them. But you didn’t have a choice, did you?” She shrugged, coming back down to Rose’s level. “After all, blood control’s really just a cheap trick. Can’t do all that much. Can’t go against any big biological impulses. Good scare, though, I’ll give you that. Almost had us all convinced.”

“We have other forms of conquest,” the alien said. “We can take this world by force.”

“Sure you can,” the Doctor said. “Why, though? Just-- just look at these humans. They’ve got so much going for them. And they don’t need your help for any of it. Leave them alone.”

“Or what?” 

“Or…” the Doctor looked around. She pulled a sword out of-- Rose didn’t actually see where the sword came from. “I challenge you!” 

She looked sort of silly, a woman in a dressing gown with a sword. But her confidence made up for it, and somehow, Rose found herself taking the Doctor completely seriously as she stared down the aliens. 

The Doctor slid the dressing gown off her and tossed it to Rose, who caught it, grinning.

“Nice pajamas,” the Doctor said, looking down at herself. Then, to the alien, she said, “So, you accept my challenge?”

The fight began with a bit more repartee, swords clashing. Rose watched. She had to admit that this new Doctor had a sort of fire that was fun to watch. And her stance was strong; she clearly knew what she was doing with a sword.

Rose followed at a distance as the Doctor and the alien moved out of the room and outside onto a surface that sort of reminded Rose of a beach, with a drop-off where she imagined the ocean would be. She hung back against the wall of rock, not anxious to get near the drop-off, but the Doctor seemed to have no such qualms. She stepped back and forth, attacked and parried, engaged with the alien in a strange sort of dance. Rose almost forgot that the fate of the planet hung in the balance until all of a sudden the Doctor was lying on the ground, pinned underneath the alien.

The alien’s sword came down on the Doctor’s hand. 

Rose gasped.

“Oi!” the Doctor said. “You cut my hand off!” She turned to Rose. “Did you see that? He cut my hand off?” She grinned, turning back to the alien. “But now I know what kind of man-- I mean-- person-- but now I know what I’m like, yeah? I’m  _ lucky _ .”

She held up her hand.

“I’m still in the first fifteen hours of my regeneration cycle, see? So I get to just do this.”

And, as Rose watched, a new hand appeared, growing out of the sleeve of Rose’s best pajama shirt. 

Which meant that the Doctor didn’t have a sword. She looked around frantically. There was another sword leaning against the wall; she grabbed it and yelled, “Doctor!”

The Doctor turned, and Rose threw the sword in her direction. The Doctor caught it easily.

“Still the Doctor, then?” the Doctor asked.

“No arguments from me!” Rose called back, grinning.

The fight was over quickly after that. The Doctor pinned the alien to the ground, and then she let the alien go, in true Doctor fashion, with the agreement that this species wouldn’t bother Earth again. As she walked back towards Rose, the alien came running back towards her with the sword, and Rose called out, “Doctor!”

The Doctor heard Rose and turned around, an expression of steel on her face. 

“Don’t you dare,” she said, staring the alien down.

To Rose’s surprise, the alien backed off.

“Not brave enough to kill me while I’m facing you?” the Doctor asked, turning up her nose. “Should’ve guessed.” She glanced at Rose. “Come on, Rose.”

Rose followed her into the great chamber. 

“Get into the TARDIS,” the Doctor said. “Harriet, friends. Jackie. Mickey. Rose.”

“I’m staying with you,” Rose told her.

“All right, then,” the Doctor said. “I just have one last thing to say to you all,  _ Sycorax _ . By the ancient rights of combat, I banish you from this planet. Go away. Go far away from here. And when you’re telling everybody about the Earth, this wonderful planet down here, when you’re telling everybody about the wealth it has to offer, don’t forget to mention this, the most important fact about this planet: it is  _ defended _ , and it is  _ loved _ . Got it?”

Without waiting for an answer, she turned on her heel, and Rose followed her into the TARDIS.

A moment later, the Doctor was dancing around the TARDIS console like always while Rose leaned back against a railing, watching. And then, suddenly, the Doctor stepped back.

“We’re back on Earth,” the Doctor said. “Sycorax must have put us back.” She grinned. “Which means they must be flying away! Brilliant!” She turned around to face Rose. “Shall we take a look?”

Everyone trooped out of the TARDIS, chattering away. There was a general air of jubilance; Rose hugged Mickey, and she hugged the translator., and the Doctor hugged Harriet Jones, who proclaimed her “exactly the same man-- woman, I mean.” Finally, Rose turned to the Doctor, not sure what to do now.

“Oh, come here,” the Doctor said, and pulled Rose into the tightest hug yet. Rose rested her head on the Doctor’s shoulder, trying to get used to the feel of this new body. 

“Still a good hugger, then,” she said, pulling back with a smile.

“Suppose that’s who I am,” the Doctor said, grinning back.

And then Rose heard a voice calling her name, and she turned to see her mum, laden with at least four bags, running towards her.

“Mum!” she cried, running to hug her mum. 

“Oh, here she is!” the Doctor exclaimed. “Didn’t lose her after all. I was worried, you know.”

“Sure you were,” Rose’s mum said. “Glad to see you’re finally up.”

“You make a good cup of tea,” the Doctor said. “Gave me a proper wake-up call. Good thing, too. Saved the world, probably.”

“Told you so!” Rose’s mum said. “I said, I bet all she really needs, is a good cup of tea!”

“Quite right,” the Doctor said. 

“Oh, it’s really him, isn’t it?” Rose’s mum asked. “Or her, I suppose. And look, it’s the bleeding prime minister!”

“Oh, come here,” the Doctor said again, and she pulled Rose and her mum both into a hug, all laughing. 

And then there was a terrible noise. Rose broke from the hug and looked up to see six streams of green light hit the sky, converging on the alien spaceship. 

“What is that?” she murmured.

“It’s murder,” the Doctor said, her voice low and hard. She strode over to Harriet Jones. “You have no right. No right!”

“It’s self-defense,” Harriet told her. “We’ve developed it with Torchwood, out of a spaceship that landed ten years ago.”

“What’d you do that for?” the Doctor asked. “They were leaving!”

“They were going to tell others about us,” Harriet said. “You’re not here all the time, Doctor. Sometimes people die. It happened today. You were sleeping, and people died. My friends. People I knew. I won’t let that happen again.”

“I’m sorry,” the Doctor said. “I am  _ so _ sorry. If I could save everyone, believe me, I would. But murder is not the answer.”

“Well, then, what is?” Harriet asked.

“Britain’s Golden Age,” the Doctor said. 

“Comes at a price.”

“Well, then, I gave them the wrong warning,” the Doctor said. “Should have said, beward of Earth, because the people here will kill you given half a chance.”

“I’m sorry,” Harriet said. 

“I’ve got my eye on you, Harriet Jones,” the Doctor said. She held eye contact with Harriet for a long moment, and then, just when Rose thought something was going to happen, the Doctor backed away and walked off. Rose, her mum, and Mickey followed.

“So,” Rose said to the Doctor, “are you staying for Christmas dinner?”

“Might as well,” the Doctor said. “Love a good Christmas dinner. Christmas with Rose, yeah? Just let me get out of these pajamas.”

“Works for me,” Rose said. “You know where to find us.” 

“Do I ever,” the Doctor said. “See you very soon.”

Christmas dinner was a blast. Mickey stuck around, which was a little awkward after the whole breakup thing, but seeing as he’d been around at every Christmas dinner since Rose was a baby, it wasn’t like they were going to turn him away. The Doctor was a right laugh, it turned out when she showed up halfway through in a brand new coat, accepting Rose’s mum’s cooking with the best of them, crowning Rose with a pink paper crown out of a cracker. Finally, things wound down, and the four of them trooped down to where the TARDIS sat, just outside the estate, half covered in false snow

“What are you going to do now?” Rose asked the Doctor, both of them standing just outside the TARDIS.

“Back in the box,” the Doctor said. “There’s loads to see.”

Rose looked down. She pushed a bit of hair behind her ear. And then she looked back at the Doctor, biting her lip and trying to hide the water in her eyes.

“On your own?” she asked, her voice thinner than she’d meant it to be.

“Don’t you want to join me?” the Doctor asked.

Rose shrugged, looking down again. 

“I don’t know,” she said. “You’ve changed. I just thought-- I thought you might not want me.”

“I always want you around, Rose Tyler,” the Doctor said. “I mean, I was sort of worried you wouldn’t want to stay with  _ me _ , now I’m all-- woman and everything.”

“Of course I do,” Rose said.

“Brilliant,” the Doctor said. “Us, traveling. And you know what, Rose Tyler?” She gave Rose a mischievous grin. “It is going to be…  _ fantastic _ .”

Rose grinned back, slipping her hand into the Doctor’s.

Maybe it would be the same as before. In all the ways that mattered, at least.

“So where are we going to go first?” she asked, pressing closer to the Doctor. 

The Doctor pointed up at the night sky, with all its stars.

“There,” she said. “No, wait.” She moved her finger slightly to the left. “There.”

But Rose wasn’t looking at the stars. 


	2. New Earth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i posted this chapter to the wrong fic last night and i still got a nice comment on it. so thanks for that but this is where it's supposed to be! shoutout to chapter 1 being like 7k words and this being like 3k love some inconsistency

Rose hugged her mum goodbye and practically ran into the TARDIS, dropping her dad’s old camping backpack onto the floor. The Doctor had been at the TARDIS console doing who-knows-what, but when she saw Rose, her face broke into a grin.

“Rose!” she exclaimed, practically bounding to where Rose stood. “Brilliant! I was worried you weren’t coming.”

“Of course I am,” Rose said. “I’ve got to see the universe, right?”

“Exactly right,” the Doctor said.

“So where are we going now?” Rose asked.

The Doctor grinned at Rose. Her new face was almost elastic, Rose thought, with how quickly it smiled and frowned and everything else.

“Further than ever before,” she said, and threw the TARDIS into motion. Rose watched as she danced around the console, much more animated than before. It was like her last self had been on mute, and now she was at full volume.

“Is this new face just what would happen if your last face had a lot of coffee?” she asked.

“You know,” the Doctor said, “I wouldn’t be at all surprised.”

“And dyed her hair,” Rose added.

“Oi, this is natural!” the Doctor protested.

“If you count growing a whole new body natural,” Rose said, laughing.

“It’s plenty natural,” the Doctor said. The TARDIS’s central column ground to a halt, and the Doctor he held out a hand. “You ready?”

“Always,” Rose promised. She took the Doctor’s hand, and together they ran out of the TARDIS, huge grins on both of their faces. The alien sun hit their faces, the grass beneath their feet a shocking shade of green, and Rose laughed with the joy of it all.

“Welcome to year five billion and twenty three,” the Doctor said, gesturing grandly at the landscape.

“Oh, it’s brilliant!” Rose exclaimed.

The Doctor reached down and grabbed a fistful of grass. She popped it in her mouth and chewed, her brow furrowed.

“Yep,” she said. “New Earth.”

Rose broke into a smile again.

“Well, go on then,” she said. “What’s New Earth?”

The Doctor explained, laying out her coat and flopping backwards onto it with just enough space for Rose to join her, and Rose let herself melt into this future world, where humans had gone to the stars and the grass smelled like apples. The Doctor offered her some grass to eat, completely seriously, and Rose laughed hysterically-- the Doctor asked, “What?” and Rose just said, “You’re so different.”

“Yep, that’s me!” the Doctor said. “I’m a new new Doctor.”

“So,” Rose said, still laughing a little, “are we going into the city?”

“In a bit,” the Doctor said. “I got a message on the psychic paper. Someone in there needs help.” She gestured towards a huge silver building, standing alone across the river from the city.

“What’s that?” Rose asked, propping herself up on her elbows to look.

“Hospital,” the Doctor said. “See the green moon? That’s the universal symbol for hospitals.”

“Oh, is it?”

“Yep,” the Doctor said. “Not my fault Earth hasn’t caught up.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out the psychic paper, showing it to Rose. Scrawled across it were the words  _Ward 26-- please come._

“Suppose we’d better check it out, then,” Rose said, bumping her shoulder into the Doctor’s.

“Suppose we’d better,” the Doctor agreed, and she slipped her hand into Rose’s.

Rose wasn’t sure what to make of how tactile this new new Doctor was. The old Doctor had held her hand sometimes, sure, and she had gotten him to dance with her once, after a lot of prodding and teasing, but this new Doctor had already spent a significant amount of her admittedly short life holding Rose’s hand, their shoulders knocking together, and then there had been the whole lying-side-by-side-on-her-coat thing, which had brought them much closer than Rose was used to. As she walked with the Doctor now, she wondered if it was because the Doctor was a woman-- did that change things between the two of them? She had always been touchy with her girlfriends. But the Doctor didn’t seem like the sort of person who particularly cared about gender.

(Before this, Rose and the Doctor had had something approaching a romantic connection. Rose knows she should feel like she’s lost that, but-- somehow she just feels like it’s gotten stronger. She doesn’t know how to feel about that, so she just lets herself focus on the warmth of the Doctor’s hand in hers and the way her ear cuff glitters in the sunlight when she tucks a piece of shining blonde hair back.)

They made their way to the hospital. The Doctor started rambling about the lack of little shop-- “Love a little shop,” she told Rose. “Can’t have a hospital without a little shop.” --while Rose marveled at the cat-faced nurses. She loved this feeling like every new sight was a revelation. It was the future, and humans had combined their genome with that of a cat, and here Rose was, looking at the result.

The Doctor ran headlong into a lift. Rose ran after her, but the lift closed before she could get in, and she was left outside, yelling to the Doctor. She pressed a button and another lift opened, and she stepped in, apprehensive.

The inside of the lift sprayed her with some awful stinging substance, and even though it dried her off after, she still felt it on her skin and in her hair. Then the doors opened, and she stepped out into-- decidedly  _not_ Ward 26. She was in a dark and gloomy hallway, covered in what looked very much like garbage, and there was a strange person with oddly bright eyes staring at her.

“The human child is clean,” he said, his voice cold.

“Sorry, I’m looking for Ward 26?” Rose said, shifting her weight from foot to foot.

“This way, Rose Tyler.”

Shaken, Rose glanced around. She saw a metal bar on the floor, and she grabbed it, clutching the cold metal. The strange man showed her into an equally dark and gloomy room. On one wall, a video was playing-- a woman at a party, laughing and sipping champagne as she flirted with the other guests. Something about her voice was familiar to Rose-- she couldn’t quite place it--

And then she could.

_Cassandra._

The name came back to her with a flurry of fear and anger. She turned to her guide, about to say something, and then she heard that voice say, “Peekaboo.”

Rose turned to see the “woman” herself, skin stretched across a metal frame, and she recoiled.

“Don’t you come anywhere near me, Cassandra,” she said, backing away.

Cassandra sneered at her, and Rose backed away further. As she and Cassandra sneered at each other, Rose edged closer and closer to the door, until finally she thought she might just be close enough to make a break for it.

She wasn’t so lucky. There was a flash, and then lighting was pulling at her fingers, lifting her a few inches off the ground while she flailed. Before she knew it, she felt herself losing sensation of her limbs, like she was retreating further into her body, becoming nothing but a consciousness inside her head. She tried to cry out, but she couldn’t control her mouth, and suddenly she felt cramped, somehow. Stifled. She could still see and hear, but she couldn’t control what she was looking at or where she was going, and when her mouth opened, it was Lady Cassandra’s accent that came out. Not only that, but she felt a strangely unpleasant feeling, like someone she detested was in her personal space, and she realized that it was Lady Cassandra’s mind brushing up against hers. And as Lady Cassandra spoke to Chip, she realized that Lady Cassandra could  _see_ what was in her mind. Rose wanted nothing more than to scream, but even that small power had been taken away from her.

And then the Doctor called, and Rose hoped and hoped that Cassandra wouldn’t answer, but she  _did_ , and she used some horrible accent that Rose had never used in her  _life_ , and the worst part was, the Doctor didn’t even seem to notice.

Cassandra took Rose’s body up in the lift to where the Doctor was running around and worrying, just like usual. Something was wrong in the hospital, then, something beyond Lady Cassandra taking over bodies.

Rose allowed herself a moment of gratification when the Doctor asked about her voice, then a moment of exasperation when the Doctor accepted Cassandra’s half-baked explanation.

And then-- and  _then._

Rose could feel everything, just the same as usual. She wasn’t in control, but she felt the air against the newly bare skin of her chest, the way Cassandra’s voice grated at her throat, and-- she felt the Doctor’s suspenders in her hands as Lady Cassandra pulled close, and she felt the Doctor’s lips, impossibly soft, against hers, as Lady Cassandra kissed her.

She hated it.

She wanted to be in control.

She wanted to be doing this herself, slower, softer, and not along for the ride while someone else took her body right out from under her. Lady Cassandra was forceful, fierce, and Rose was just… a girl with a crush.

A crush. She had never had a crush on another woman before.

All of these thoughts hit her one after another over the course of the kiss, and then Lady Cassandra pulled away. Rose didn’t get a look at the Doctor’s reaction before Lady Cassandra said something about a terminal and started walking, but then she felt a hand on her arm, and Lady Cassandra stopped and turned. The Doctor was looking at her, head tilted to one side, mouth slightly open.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” Lady Cassandra said with Rose’s voice. “Let’s move.”

She continued walking, and Rose heard the Doctor’s footsteps behind. She wanted to turn on her heel and call out, to say  _No!_ and  _Can’t you see it’s not me?_ But she could feel her feet against the floor, stepping forward, and she could feel Cassandra’s mind pressing against her own, a barrier between her soul and her body.

And the Doctor still showed no signs of realizing.

Cassandra took Rose’s body through the halls, emerging into a strange dark corridor lined with glowing green capsules. Rose didn’t know what they were, but she was absolutely sure they weren’t good. Somehow, even with someone else in control of her body, she felt a sinking feeling in her stomach, one that only intensified as the Doctor, thinking out loud, speculated as to their purpose.

One of the cat-nuns came in then, and Rose couldn’t help but enjoy the face-off, the Doctor in her righteous anger, eyes blazing, coat flapping, finger jabbing at the air. She had learned, in her time traveling, how to enjoy parts of even the worst of adventures, and this was no exception.

“And another thing,” the Doctor was saying, “what have you done to Rose?”

The cat-nun looked taken aback, but Rose was filled with relief. The Doctor had recognized something wrong after all.

“What do you mean?” the cat-nun asked.

The Doctor advanced on her, looking a little like a mountain lion deciding whether or not to attack.

“I mean,” she said, “and I’m being very calm about this, because the brain is a delicate thing, I mean that I don’t know what you’ve done to Rose, I want it reversed.”

“I don’t-- I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the cat-nun said.

And then Cassandra, speaking through Rose’s mouth, with that horrible strangled accent, said, “I’m perfectly fine.”

The Doctor’s glare didn’t waver from the cat-nun.

“That’s not Rose Tyler,” she said, gesturing at Rose’s body. “All these people, dying, and Rose would be absolutely livid right now.”

Rose felt a sigh escape her lips.

“All right,” Lady Cassandra said through her mouth. “You’ve got me. I’m not Rose Tyler.”

The Doctor turned in a flash, her coat fanning out behind her. She put a hand on Rose’s shoulder and another on Rose’s cheek and scanned her face. Rose wondered what she saw.

“What’s happened to you?” the Doctor asked.

Lady Cassandra gave some non-answer, but Rose wasn’t paying attention, because her cheek was tingling with the Doctor’s touch, and all she could think about was the Doctor’s concerned eyes on her, worried about  _Rose_.

Rose had often been wanted for her body. Boys had always wanted her for her looks, girls had always wanted to compare makeup tips, and Rose had enjoyed that, but-- there was something electrifying about the way the Doctor was looking for her mind. If Lady Cassandra hadn’t been driving the bus, Rose thought she might have kissed the Doctor right then, gender be damned.

But then the Doctor asked, “Who are you?” and Lady Cassandra answered, and the Doctor dropped her hands from Rose’s body and stepped back, and the warmth went away and Rose just felt empty and irritated and afraid, feelings which only intensified as Lady Cassandra threw her perfume in the Doctor’s face and the Doctor fell right into Rose’s arms. Rose felt completely helpless as Cassandra manhandled the Doctor into a capsule just as if she had been dealing with a particularly troublesome rag doll.

Moments later, alarms were going off, diseased bodies were waking up, the Doctor was yelling and pounding on the door to her capsule. And Rose was still helpless, carried along by Cassandra’s whims. With every passing moment, she felt less connected to reality and to her body. She felt like her mind might just float away and leave Cassandra to control her body. She didn’t  _want_ that to happen, but it was seeming increasingly like she had no choice.

She lost track of what was happening for a while. Everything seemed a little blurred, injustice and disease and danger all rolled up together, and Rose just along for the ride.

Until suddenly, everything was thrown into sharp relief. Rose felt Lady Cassandra leave her head like air being let out of a balloon, and suddenly she was trapped at the end of a hallway with the Doctor, only--

Only the Doctor had an unfamiliar look in her eyes.

“Leave her!” Rose yelled, before she even knew what she was saying. “Get out of her!”

“I don’t think so,” Cassandra said. “This is an  _entirely_ new experience. Two hearts.” She wiggled the Doctor’s body in a way that felt to Rose like a perversion of everything the Doctor was. The Doctor didn’t exist to be sexy in the same way Cassandra did; the Doctor was confident and competent and good at getting out of situations just like this one and Rose had only been back in her body for a few seconds but she already missed the Doctor.

“I know how you look at her,” the Cassandra-Doctor said to Rose. “I’ve seen inside your head. You  _like_ this new body. You like it better than the old one.”

“We haven’t got time for this,” Rose said. “Get out of her!”

“Not a chance,” the Cassandra-Doctor said, but just then a horde broke through the door behind them, and Cassandra looked around wildly, the Doctor’s hair flying everywhere. “Where do we go?” she asked.

Rose glanced around, her eyes falling on a ladder. She didn’t want to help Cassandra, but she needed the Doctor’s body safe.

“Up there,” she said, pointing.

Of course, Cassandra pushed past her to go up first. Rose scrambled behind, only feet from the nearest of the diseased.

“If you get out of the Doctor’s body, she can think of something,” she called up to Cassandra.

“Do you  _ever_ stop talking?” Cassandra asked. “My, but it was tedious inside your head. Hormone city.”

“We’re going to die,” Rose yelled, desperation edging into her voice. They were fast approaching the top of the ladder, and Cassandra seemed completely out of her depth, flapping about in a way that might have been funny if Rose hadn’t been so  _angry_.

The Cassandra-Doctor fumbled for the sonic screwdriver, and finally Rose yelled, “Just go back into me. The Doctor’ll open it. Come on!”

“If you say so,” the Cassandra-Doctor said, and then Rose felt Lady Cassandra’s mind shoving her way into her head again. Her mind slipped away faster this time, and she heard the Doctor yelling at Cassandra as if from the end of a long tunnel.

A moment later, she was back in her body, and, as she looked down, she saw a familiar look in the eyes of the diseased person climbing below her.

“Oh, good Lord,” Cassandra said, tossing her brand new head. “I look disgusting.”

Above Rose, the door opened, and she clambered out after the Doctor.

“Nice to have you back,” the Doctor said to her, already closing the doors with her screwdriver.

Of course, it couldn’t be that easy. Just before the door closed, Rose saw the woman Cassandra had been occupying recoil, and then Cassandra flew into her head again, pushing her mind even further away from the real world.

When Rose was next aware of the world around her, she was limp in the Doctor’s arms, blinking her eyes open to see the Doctor’s face above her, that same look of concern in her eyes.

“You all right?” the Doctor asked.

Rose nodded, out of breath.

“Yeah,” she said. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to get reacclimated. She let her legs hold her up, but the Doctor’s arms were still around her, and for a moment Rose just sank into the embrace, enjoying the solidity and soft tangibility of the Doctor’s warm body.

“Missed you,” she said, stepping back and out of the hug.

“Good to have you back, Rose Tyler,” the Doctor said.

“Good to be back,” Rose said with a smile. She turned to see Lady Cassandra’s strange assistant checking himself out.

“Oh, my Lord,” he-- she, since Cassandra had clearly taken over --said. “I’m a walking doodle.”

Rose hadn’t expected to mourn Cassandra. But somehow, now, watching her die-- this ancient consciousness, even if she had been a ridiculous excuse for a human-- stirred something in Rose’s heart. She and the Doctor took Cassandra back for one last goodbye to herself, and then they made sure her assistant’s body would be buried with a marker for them both.

And then it was just Rose and the Doctor, walking into the TARDIS, hand-in-hand.

They dropped hands as they came in. They had a strange and unspoken agreement-- in the outside world, people often assumed they were a couple of some sort, and they tended to act like it, but inside the TARDIS, they rarely touched like that. Rose had wondered what might happen to that rule now the Doctor was a woman, but it seemed intact, and Rose didn’t mind. It made things easy. She wasn’t afraid she’d overstep when the line was so clearly delineated.

She went to the console, fiddling with one of the dials (a safe one, she knew from past adventures). The Doctor drew up next to her, and Rose looked up. They locked eyes.

There really was something in the way this Doctor looked at her. There were unfathomable depths in those eyes, and every last one of those depths was dedicated to care and concern and-- Rose almost didn’t dare think it, but-- _love_. Rose felt the same care and concern and love mirrored back at the Doctor, and for a moment, she could feel it between them, a taut string of emotion.

“I thought I’d never see you again,” Rose breathed.

“I know,” the Doctor said, and Rose realized her eyes were full of tears. The old Doctor had never cried, not even when he had been talking about his entire species going extinct.

“I thought Cassandra was going to be inside me forever,” Rose said.

“Rose,” the Doctor said, “I will do everything in my power to never let that happen to you again.”

And Rose couldn’t take it any longer. She pulled the Doctor into her arms, burying her face in the Doctor’s shoulder. She was aware of tears streaking down her face, and she sniffled, trying her hardest not to sob all over the Doctor’s coat.

It was a lost cause. The Doctor managed to direct her over to the TARDIS bench, and they both sat down, the Doctor’s arms tight around Rose. And Rose felt real, she felt connected, and she even-- she struggled to admit it to herself-- but she even felt loved.

“I’m so sorry,” the Doctor whispered against her hair. “So sorry.”

Rose looked up and wiped at her tears with the back of her hand.

“Thank you,” she said, trying to put more into those words than she knew how.

The Doctor held her gaze, and Rose thought maybe she had gotten the message. She sat back on the bench, leaning her head on the Doctor’s shoulder.

“We’d better go someplace  _actually_ relaxing tomorrow,” she said.

“Count on it,” the Doctor replied.

**Author's Note:**

> So basically I'm going to continue this through to the end of the season, ideally. I'm going to include Rose's gay panic (bi Rose 2k18), thirteen-specific character choices, and hopefully a *lot* less misogyny/racism than the original series. And, since this is my AU and I can do what I want, I might fix smaller things in canon along the way, just for kicks.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
